Lessons From 2023 Blog Traffic
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Y’all got practical about pulling the heartstrings & smoothing the purchase path with your favorite blog posts of 2023! But there was a deeper marketing lesson for each of my most popular blog posts of the year when I sat down to think about it.
The following is my rundown of my blog posts with the most traffic in 2023 and the marketing lessons I learned from each.
#5 Preventing Choice Overload in Website Marketing
What It Was About
Gotta have options, but not too many. Here’s how to keep your website marketing simple so you don’t accidentally send customers into analysis paralysis. Read it here.
What I Learned From Its Popularity
With this one, I took more care than usual to optimize for the search engines.
Near the top, I included a hyperlinked summary of the main points I would cover in the article, like so:
I linked to a bunch of high-authority resources to back up my arguments.
Further, I used search-friendly headings that matched Google queries such as “What is choice overload?”
It’s also a practical topic with a long shelf-life.
All that SEO paid off. This post was published Jan. 23, 2022. It’s practically 2 years old and still getting high-traffic!
Interestingly, I’ve noticed that for this post in particular, I’ve had a lot of people reach out with their own resources that they’d like me to link to from this post. And with the increase of folks doing that, I also started receiving offers to be paid to include links in my blog posts. Which is a pretty nice, easy-peasy way to make a few extra bucks.
#4 You ARE the Niche
What It Was About
No need to fit into a niche when you ARE the niche. Who better to illustrate that than my college bestie, Ethnobotanist/Witch/Author/Forager/Tattoo Artist/Primitive Skills Teacher Rebecca Beyer? Listen to this episode of the Irresistible Marketing Pod wherever you get your podcasts for some major inspiration and validation or read the post here.
What I Learned From Its Popularity
She’ll kill me for saying this, but my pal Rebecca is an influencer.
27K folks avidly follow her @bloodandspicebush Instagram account. Nearly 13K drool over her tattoo artistry on the @the.blood.vvitch account. She’s published 2 wildly popular books on witchcraft. Her classes regularly sell out. My interview with her about her unconventional career path on The Irresistible Marketing Pod was my all-time most popular episode.
Long story short: she’s kinda a big deal, and having her on my platforms gave me a boost! Her audience met me and I benefited majorly from the introduction. Podcast downloads, newsletter subscribers, new customers.
Collaborating with the right influencers can go such a long way for:
🍯 Getting your brand in front of new, aligned audiences
🍯 Giving an instant credibility boost to your offers- they trust the influencer who trusts you
🍯 It doesn’t have to be slimy and product-placement-y. This was a super organic conversation between two old friends.
#3 The Importance of Hope In Marketing
What It Was About
Hope is a powerful marketing tool- one that is often misunderstood and misused. Marketing does have a well-earned bad rap for selling false hopes. Let’s discuss some tactics to avoid, and some more, well, hopeful ones. Read it here.
What I Learned From Its Popularity
This one is also one that had a surprisingly long shelf-life- only the fourth post I wrote for my business when it opened nearly 3 years ago.
Honestly, this one stumps me a bit about why it still draws so much traffic beyond just citing a lot of real-life examples and linking to high-quality sources.
I suspect it has something to do with the following:
🌶️ I didn’t attempt to be unbiased or apolitical. I was bold in my positions and my values- which makes for a much more charged and passionate read than your typical “how to do marketing” article.
🌶️ It presented an alternative approach than the one that usually makes us all feel “ick” about marketing: hope-based selling rather than pain-point pressing. It opened the possibility of ethical, consent-based, socially just marketing.
🌶️ With my sass and cynical optimism, it didn’t read like another bland business talking head. I have a voice that’s MINE- and love it or hate it, you’re gonna recognize it.
#2 Website Optimization: How to Visually Highlight The Most Important Messaging on Your Website
What It Was About
Many businesses tend to go more maximalist than they should with their web pages. Here’s why website optimization often requires a “less is more” approach. Read it here.
What I Learned From Its Popularity
This was another 2-year-old post that keeps bringing traffic into my website. Honestly, I wildly underestimated the value and shelf-life of my blog as a marketing channel.
Imagine marketing you create today bringing you new customers and followers years from now!
Why I think this one is still getting searched for and found a lot:
✨ Practical marketing advice on a topic that won’t be irrelevant any time soon.
✨ I linked to high-quality references to back up the credibility of my points.
✨ I quoted 2 fantastic designers I interviewed just for this piece, so it wasn’t just a “take my word for it” sort of thing.
✨ Nearly all of my headings included key words and phrases relevant to the topic of the blog. Search engines crawl your on-page structure to try to determine the subject you’re talking about, the relevance of your page, and your authority on the topic- so make sure you’re using headings wisely!
#1 Irresistible Marketing Example: Chewy Sends Flowers to Customers Whose Pets Have Passed Away
What It Was About
Chewy sending bereaved pet owners flowers & pet portraits is a wonderful example of just how irresistible kindness can be for your marketing. Read it here.
What I Learned From Its Popularity
Oof, a lot. I started my podcast with high hopes of being able to research and share a real-life irresistible marketing example with each episode. Typical of me to underestimate how much freaking work that is and that it’s not sustainable if I want to keep serving dozens of clients at once and release more than 4 podcast episodes a year!
I do enjoy sharing these examples, but they’re going to have to wait until I have more spaciousness in my schedule. And I am OK with the wait. Because although this blog post still brings my website a TON of daily traffic, it’s not from people searching for marketing help. The traffic is from people who want to know about Chewy. That doesn’t do me much good.
Overall Takeaways
I am pleasantly surprised by what a long shelf-life my blog posts tend to have. Posts I wrote years ago are still bringing people into my website and introducing them to my work today.
In 2024, I’m going to:
🍯 Lean into interviewing guests on The Irresistible Marketing Pod whose audiences are likely to include my ideal clients and keep publishing the show notes from these episodes as blog posts.
🍯 Rededicate myself to good on-page SEO practices like:
✨ Making snippet-friendly content like answering “how to” questions and including a hyperlinked summary of my main points near the top of the blog post.
✨Strategically using my headers to indicate authority and relevance on the topic I’m writing about.
🍯 Let my email list know about the gold that is my blog. Anytime I’ve done an email campaign with links to posts, they got a ton of clicks.
Bottom line: my blog is a resource that people value, and it’s time I took that to heart. It’s also a resource that holds a lot of value for my business, as it continually brings new people into my website and introduces them to my work.
Could you use some help making sense of what your numbers are telling you and knowing what to do with them to make your marketing even more effective? Join The Squad for EPIC marketing & emotional support. Or if you want all the benefits of the blog but want someone else to do the heavy-lifting, check out our Blog Packages.
